1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of Internet systems, and in particular, to a system that processes web calls in a web call center.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Current call centers require numerous service agents to answer traditional voice calls from customers. The call centers typically route the voice calls to the next available agent based on numerous criteria such as the time of day, the specific day, language preference, and the service agent's ability to handle the call. If no service agent is available, the call center places the voice call in a queue with other voice calls. For calls in the queue, the call center provides a variety of advertising messages or audio entertainment in order to prevent call abandonment. Once the next service agent becomes available, the call center routes the voice call with the highest priority in the queue to the service agent.
Call center companies now have a new medium for interaction with their call center customers with the expansion of the Internet. With the introduction of web browsers, the number of Internet users along with the number of companies selling their product or services over the Internet continue to grow. Companies target individual Internet users by placing “cookies” on the users' computers. These “cookies” provide a variety of marketing information to assist companies in various tasks such as pinpointing customers and providing precise marketing campaigns. Companies also provide chat rooms for users to discuss various subjects. Companies that provide chat room services control the number of users in the chat room and queue users waiting to enter the chat room. The Internet browser presents the position of the users in the queue to the user through Hyper Text Markup Language. Besides chat rooms, text e-mails, and web browsing, the Internet is rapidly expanding towards new types of communication such as video conferencing and voice calls.
A web call is an Internet session for exchanging information using call treatment or videoconferencing treatment. An example of call treatment is the H.323 standard by the International Telecommunications Union—Telecommunications (ITU-T). Currently, companies provide web call centers to handle these web calls. A gateway converts the web call into a traditional voice call. Then an automatic call distributor (ACD) routes the voice call to service agents at the call center. If no service agent is available, the ACD routes the call to a queue server to queue the call with other calls waiting for available service agents. The ACD also plays a recorded message to the voice call or routes the call to a voice response unit (VRU) that plays the recorded message to the voice call.
The lack of call processing for web calls is a problem. Call processing such as routing, queuing, and messaging is needed to better handle immediate response, language preferences, deterrence of web call abandonment, and targeted marketing campaigns.